


better days (and how to find them)

by inhibition



Category: Miraculous Ladybug
Genre: Adrien is Damaged, Aged-Up Character(s), Child Abuse, Drug Addiction, Drug Use, F/M, Heavy Angst, Implied/Referenced Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Marinette is an Angel, Moderate Cursing, This Is STUPID, Verbal Abuse
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-09-28
Updated: 2019-02-11
Packaged: 2019-07-18 14:41:23
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,960
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16120607
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/inhibition/pseuds/inhibition
Summary: After 50 years of pain experienced in his short 24 years on this earth, Adrien turns to coke to cope.He then turns to Marinette for help.





	1. the only thing stopping me is me

Adrien always had a tough life. Many people would kill to even be a fly on a wall in the life of Adrien Agreste, boy wonder, model extraordinaire. Pretty, smart, and rich all in one package.   
  
That couldn’t have been farther from the truth. His childhood was filled to the brim with things a normal childhood should not consist of.   
  
The first few years of his life were great. He wasn’t a spoiled child, but he didn’t want for much. He didn’t need to, he had his mother. His dad was never home much, so after he finished his homeschooling he would tell his mother everything he learned that day. He would sit for hours and play the piano for her and have extensive (for an 8 year old) conversations in Mandarin with her.   
  
Everything changed when his mother went missing.   
  
It started when he was 13. His mother had only been gone for 6 months, and hope was still alive, but starting to dwindle. Adrien sat at his computer, looking on an online forum to see if anyone had spotted his mother anywhere around Paris.   
  
“Adrien!” Gabriel yelled, bursting into his room. Adrien immediately tensed up, not liking the intense tone of his father's voice.   
  
“Yes, father?” Adrien replied, standing up and straightening his posture immediately.   
  
“Why are you not studying? What are you doing hunched over the computer?” His father shot at him, pushing past Adrien to go look at his computer.   
  
Adrien didn’t get to reply before his father scanned the screen, turning to glare at him.   
  
“This is what you do all day? Sit up here in this room when you could be shooting commercials and actually doing something useful?” Gabriel said, sneering. He pushed back past his son, walking out the door.   
  
“I’m just trying to see if there are any updates on Mom!” Adrien yelled, chasing after his father until he stood in the doorway.   
  
“You stupid child. ‘Updates on Mom?’ She's not coming back.” Gabriel spat at Adrien, turning to face and look down on him.   
  
“How do you k-“ Adrien was cut off by a hard backhand slap to the face, causing him to hit the wall and ricochet onto the floor. He gripped his face, his cheek busted and bleeding due to his father's rings.   
  
“Don’t question me, boy. Because I know. She never loved me, and she never loved you. And she's not coming back. Now get up.” Gabriel finished, calmly walking away and leaving his bruised son on the floor, crying.   
  
Soon, however, slaps turned into punches, and punches turned into kicks. While using his son as a personal punching bag, Gabriel would shoot out insults that would hurt more than the hits.   
  
_We never loved you.  
You’re a burden.  
She left because of you.  
She never wanted you._  
  
And in between the beatings, Gabriel would be so nice to him. He would let him hang out with Nino, and stay up late and he wouldn’t even dare lay a finger on him.   
  
But when it rains, it pours.   
  
And Adrien took it every goddamn time.   
  
Becoming Chat Noir was probably the best thing that could ever happen to him. It meant he didn’t have to be home, it meant he didn’t have to see his father, it meant taking out every goddamn piece of pent-up rage against his father on Hawkmoth’s akuma. It meant freedom.   
  
But the beatings when he got caught sneaking back in were the worst. His father messed him up, bad. Three broken ribs, dislocated shoulder, and a busted vessel in his eye bad. That time, he had to take almost 2 months off school for a ‘business trip’.   
  
Ladybug got him through a lot of it, even though she didn’t know. He always told her his problems, vaguely of course, because he knows if he told her the whole extent she would probably storm right up to his father and kick him square in the balls.   
  
He told her he was sick of Paris, that he wanted to go all over the world and meet everyone and see everything. He knows she did too, she always told him about her dreams of becoming a famous fashion designer in America, she had even bought him a few of her sketches.   
  
“Just wait, kitty. School is almost over, and then you can hop on rooftops from Paris to Australia. Just wait.” She told him.   
  
And he did. He waited until he graduated, hiding his pain from the broken wrist he had from the principal when he shook his hand.  All he had to do was step on a plane right after and fly away from everything and everyone.   
  
Until his dad told him he was going to college in Paris. Something about how he needed him for photo shoots and the likes, Adrien wasn’t really listening. That night he went to the top of the Eiffel Tower and cried until the sun came up, then went home and cried some more. He was never going to get out.   
  
So he went to college, got a dorm, and did the right thing. He went to all his classes, got the grades, and did what he was supposed to. He stayed on campus during holidays for as long as he could, until his father made him come home for spring break.   
  
He went back to school with a broken nose.   
  
He never told anyone, ever, because even though he knew what his father was doing was wrong, he still wanted to think that he wasn’t at fault. _He’s just like this because mom is gone_ , he told himself at night. Deep down, though, he knew. He knew his father was a piece of shit who couldn’t handle his emotions so he took them out on his only son. But he would never say it, always holding out hope.   
  
So he bore through it. Went to class by day, and became Chat Noir by night.   
  
Hawkmoth got worse throughout the years too. Started handing out worse and worse attacks, in a desperate attempt to get his and Ladybugs miraculous. Once, he made two people stand at the top of the Eiffel Tower, threatening to jump if they didn’t hand over their miraculous.    
  
Ladybug never gave up, though. There where a few times when Chat was ready to risk it all, give away his ring just to stop the terror, but Ladybug convinced him not too. Year after year, they fought Hawkmoth without ever coming face to face with him. They were no closer to finding out who he was then when they were teenagers.   
  
However, everything started to wear down on him. Adrien was tired of slipping out of class to fight Akumas, and he was tired of keeping up his facade of a perfect life. So one day, he decided to skip a class. Then he skipped a few more. He always got the work he missed though. One day, he decided to go to a party.   
  
After having a few drinks, he was feeling calm and relaxed, sitting on some old couch and watching everybody else at the party.   
  
“Adrien! Come on, I want to show you something.” One of his friends whose name he couldn’t remember right now said next to him, dragging his arm and pulling him up. Adrien sighed and rolled his eyes, following his friend into another room, thinking he was going to be shown some porn that someone found. Instead, when he walked into the room he saw five or six people around a table, all looking at him.   
  
“Someone bought some party favors.” His friend said, nodding at the table. He couldn’t see what was on the table, but he knew it was something he probably shouldn’t be around. He didn’t say anything though, following his friend to the table and sitting down. There was nothing on the table, so he turned to his friend, confused. His friend turned to a girl sitting on the other side, who in turn glared at him.   
  
“How do you know he’s cool? He’s like, the most square person in Paris.” The girl said, hesitantly.   
  
Adrien rolled his eyes.   
  
“He is. I wouldn’t have bought him if he wasn’t. Now hurry up and get the blow!” He replied, turning and smiling at Adrien.   
  
The girl eyed him again, before beginning to dig in a backpack. She pulled out 7 small plastic bags, each with an equal amount of a white substance in them. Each person grabbed a baggie, and Adrien did the same. He looked at the bag cautiously, wondering if he should just get up and leave. He decided against it.   
  
While everyone opened their bags and started pouring in on the table in their own respective space, Adrien continued to fiddle with his bag.   
  
“Adrien. You know what it is right? And you know how to use it?” His friend said, noticing that he was the only one who wasn’t preparing his lines. Adrien nodded slowly, opening the baggie.   
  
Adrien poured the coke on the table, reaching in his wallet for his credit card and a dollar bill. He had never done drugs before, but he’d seen enough movies to know what to do. He started to cut the coke, neatly making it into 3 thin lines.   
  
Nervously, he rolled up the bill and paused. He knew this wasn’t what he was supposed to be doing, and if he got caught, his father would face a whirlwind of shit from the press. _Why should you care about him, he never cared about you_ , Adrien thought. He knew he was right, so he pushed all negative thoughts out of his head and dived into his first line.   
  
His nose burned like someone had stuck a lit match up his nose, but he didn’t want to seem like he didn’t know what he was doing to everyone, so he decided against scrunching his face up in pain.   
  
At first, he thought that it was a bad batch because he was feeling absolutely nothing. Then, after a few minutes, he started to feel.... nice. He felt warm and fuzzy, and he felt like he needed to tell everyone. So he did. He told everyone he felt warm, and that he felt nice, and he just kept going. He moved on from subject to subject, not even caring if anyone was listening. Sometime in the middle of this, he closed his eyes but kept on talking. When he opened them, everyone was gone.   
  
“Oh.” He said to no one. He looked down at his two remaining lines, and thought, fuck it, and went in for another.   
  
He felt on top of the world like no one could touch him, not even his father.   
  
His father.   
  
He remembered who his father was, and who he was, and quickly remembered how much trouble he would be in if he got caught here. He thought about the police finding out and having him arrested, and then he thought about how he would get kicked out of school if he was arrested. Then he thought about how if he was arrested, he wouldn’t be there to help Ladybug if anybody got akumatized.   
  
He got paranoid and jumped up from his seat, ready to full-on sprint back to his dorm and forgot what he did. As he was walking out, he saw someone left a bag with a little bit of coke still left in it, and even though he was scared shitless, he still picked it up and slid it in his pocket before walking out of the room.   
  
After ten minutes of looking behind his shoulder anytime he heard a noise because he was so paranoid, he finally made it back to his dorm. He was starting to come down from the drugs and he felt horrible, so he fell right into his bed and fell asleep.   
  
When he woke up the next morning, he felt like garbage. His head hurt, his stomach was rumbling, and he had cramps in his legs from sleeping in skinny jeans. He slowly got out of bed, stumbling to the sink to have a glass of water. Or four.   
  
He went to check the time on his phone, which to his disappointment was dead and rubbed his head in agony. He plugged his phone up and looked at his watch, which surprisingly was not on his wrist. He looked all over his dorm, which turned up no results. He shoved his hands in his pockets to search and froze when he felt a small piece of plastic. He pulled out the bag, staring at the coke and remembering everything from last night.   
  
He quickly tossed the bag in the garbage, not risking that again. It was a one-time thing, something that he wouldn’t ever try again, even though it gave him a lot of energy and it did feel kinda good, and it would probably curb his headache right now.   
  
_Okay_ , he thought to himself, _maybe it won't be bad if I only do it one more time_. Once more couldn’t possibly be a problem right? It would get him through the day and he would never touch it again.   
  
So he fished through the garbage, holding it up to the light when he did. That proved to be a mistake because the light made his head pound ten times more, which gave him more of a reason to do lines again.   
  
He eyeballed it and came to the conclusion that there was enough for three bumps in there. The perfect amount to get him through the day. So he took his first bump and walked to class waiting for the effects to kick in. When they did, he felt so energized that he had to continuously click his pen throughout the class to prevent from getting up and sprinting across the lecture hall. But it worked. He got his work done, he was hyper-focused and he liked it.   
  
Soon one time turned to two, and two turned to four. Soon enough, he was taking a bump before every class and then he stopped going to class altogether to get high. Before he knew it, he was on academic probation.   
  
Adrien dealt with his probation for about two weeks before one day, in the peak of his high, he decided to drop out of school. He forgot that that meant living with his father again.   
  
Of course, he had more time to fight Hawkmoth now, and he was fighting better now with the aid of coke, but it also meant he had to hide it from the two scariest people in his life, Ladybug and his father.   
  
Adrien went home, endured the beating from his father for being a burnout, and limped to his room. He learned a long time ago that tears only made things worse, so he waited until he was safely in his room to bring out the waterworks.   
  
And that's how he ended up hopping across rooftops, so high he couldn’t feel the pain from his fractured tibia burning under his suit. He ran until he couldn’t run anymore, then turned around and ran back. He finally felt free for the first time in his life, even if it was only false hope. He finally got back to his house, de-transforming and slipping into his bed.   
  
Plagg flew over to hover in front of Adrien's face, sighing.  
  
“Adrien, you have to stop that. It’s not healthy for you, and I don’t want to lose you.” Plagg pleaded, begging for Adrien to see just how bad he was destroying himself.   
  
“Shut up, Plagg. I’m not an addict, I have this under control.” He replied, yawning. Adrien didn’t even stay up long enough to hear a response.   
  
Plagg shook his head and flew over to his bed, not trying to argue with him right now.   
  
That night, Adrien dreamed of introducing Ladybug to coke and them both kicking Hawkmoths ass and then celebrating with more coke afterward. He woke up freezing cold and shaking, a feeling he had grown all too familiar with lately. He remembered his dream and rubbed his head.   
  
He was fucked.   
  
  
  
  
  



	2. i refuse to die not by your side

Chat and Ladybug sat on a building, dangling their feet off the edge. They had just finished patrol, and they always tried to sit down and enjoy the beauty of their city at night before they went home.    
  
“It’s so nice out.” Ladybug said quietly, her eyes darting across the skyline.    
  
“Yeah,” Chat replied, turning to face her, “It is.”    
  
Of course, he loved Paris, but this city was tainted with too many bad memories for him. Instead of seeing all the streets and buildings like the beautiful layout of his city, he saw memorabilia that he wanted to forget.    
  
The fountain where the first person died at Hawkmoth’s hands, the bakery where he spent the last bit of quality time with his mother, and of course his father's house.    
  
He couldn’t stay here, looking at everything bad that happened in his life and not doing anything about it. Plus, he was starting to come down from his high and he felt sick. He quickly stood up, shaking Ladybug out of her trance.    
  
“What's wrong, kitty?” Ladybug shot up next to him, the concern evident in her voice.    
  
“Nothing, I just have a bit of a cold. I don’t want it to get worse. I think I should probably head home.” He said, thinking of the first excuse that came to his head.    
  
“Chat, you should have said something. I wouldn’t have kept you out here in the cold!” She replied, her concern quickly changing to guilt.    
  
“No, I like spending time with you. It’s okay.” He said, a small smile forming on his face.    
  
“Alright, but next time tell me. Goodnight, chaton.”   
  
“Goodnight, Bugaboo.” He said, and with that, he was bouncing across rooftops, the lights of the night whizzing past him as he zoomed through the sky, feeling the sting of the cold air through his hair.    
  
He stopped across the street from his house, pausing to make sure all the lights were off, which meant everyone was asleep.    
  
He jumped across the street, landing softly on the balcony outside his window. He quickly slid in, closing the window and locking it after he was inside.    
  
“Plagg, claws in.” He said as he flopped on his bed, the sweats already hitting him.    
  
“Adrien. You do realize when you go through withdrawals I feel it too, right?” Plagg said.    
  
Adrien sighed, turning on his stomach and burying his face in his pillows.    
  
“I’m not having withdrawals, Plagg, I just feel a little under the weather.” He said, still in denial about his addiction.    
  
“Whatever. You’ll learn the hard way.” Plagg said before whizzing off, going to recharge with his camembert.    
  
As Adrien began to slowly drift off to sleep, a large crack followed by an explosion woke him up. He immediately jumped up and looked out of the window, seeing a building on fire and people scattering like ants.    
  
“I just got home,” Adrien said, going back to his bed. He reached under the mattress, pulling out a small dime baggie. He didn’t have time to make proper lines so he just poured some on the palm of his hand, sniffing it up like it was nothing. He made sure he had no powder left on his nose and turned to Plagg.   
  
“Plagg, claws out.”   
  
Adrien was suddenly transformed into Chat and he felt like he could defeat anything coming at him.    
  
Jumping out of his window, he landed on a building next to his house. He quickly scanned the horizon looking for the location of the problem, quickly spotting it and heading that way.    
  
Halfway there, Ladybug fell in line next to him and they ran towards the issue together.    
  
“I was this close to falling asleep. This close!” Ladybug said next to him, a small smile tugging at her lips.    
  
“The cost of being a hero, I guess.” Chat replied, laughing.    
  
“Yeah, yeah. I thought New York was the city that never sleeps.” Ladybug shot back.    
  
They landed across the street from the fire, looking to see if there was an akuma or if this was natural. Once they spotted a woman riding a cloud, they had their answer.    
  
The woman donned a bright blue jumpsuit with white lightning strikes all across her body, and her hands were surrounded in a buzzing, white light.    
  
She pointed her hand towards a bus stop, and a stark white light shot from her fingertips, lighting it on fire.    
  
Chat was buzzing with energy, ready to run straight into the fight without thinking. So he did.    
  
Chat bounced off the roof extending his baton so he landed face to face with the villain.    
  
“It’s almost 5 in the morning. Whats got you so angry?” Chat said to her, smirking. She didn’t even reply before pointing her fist at him, and he barely missed being blown to pieces before Ladybug snatched him away with her yo-yo.    
  
“Are you trying to get yourself killed? You can't just run into a fight, especially not with someone this dangerous.” Ladybug said, concern in her eyes but her tone all scolding.    
  
Chat was still buzzing for action, her words going in one ear and out the other. He shot an absentminded ‘I’m sorry’ in her direction and turned to look at the villain, who was continuing to strike things with lightning.    
  
“Chat. I need you to distract her. If you make her pay attention to you, I can figure out where her akuma is! Don’t be stupid though. Try not to go too close.” Ladybug yelled, swinging her yo-yo around.    
  
Chat didn’t even respond, just jumped off the building he was perched on, ready to come face to face with her again. He extended his baton and stopped about 6 feet from her, careful not to get too close.    
  
“Our conversation got cut short, I don’t think I got your name.” Chat said smiling, hoping that he could keep her occupied on him long enough.    
  
He noticed Ladybug on the far right of him sizing her up, trying to determine where the akuma was.    
  
“Do you think I’m here to play games, Chat Noir?” She said, her annoyance evident in her voice.   
  
“I don’t think you’re here to play at all, what would give you that impression?” Chat replied, seeing that she was becoming more pissed with him.    
  
“I am Elektra Wattz, and I could decimate you with just a point of my hand!” She said as she aimed towards the ground underneath his baton.    
  
Chat moved out of the way just in time, before the crackling bolt of electricity crumbled the street.    
  
“Chat! It’s her ring, she’s using it to conduct electricity!” Ladybug called out behind him, and he immediately sprung into action. Ladybug jumped into action behind him, ready to attack from above.    
  
“Big mistake,” Elektra said, smirking. She immediately pointed at Ladybug, and Chat swore he felt time slow down.    
  
The bolt stuck her in her stomach, knocking her out mid-air. Chat screamed, using his baton to jump over to her and catch her before she plummeted to the ground. He wanted to scream, and punch something, and hurt somebody. Hot tears began to slip down his cheeks as he held Ladybug in his arms.    
  
Chat placed her down softly on the concrete and turned towards Elektra. If looks could kill, she would be dead ten times over.    
  
“Cataclysm.” Chat said under his breath, slowly walking in the direction of the akumitized woman.  His hand erupted in energy, the power of destruction coursing through his blood right along with the coke. Chat was determined to take this woman down, no matter what the consequences.    
  
He jumped to the roof of a building across from her and watched as she laughed at Ladybug’s pain. He grit his teeth and clenched his fist, and prepared to strike. He jumped off the building and soared toward Elektra, his hand outstretched ready to grip onto her and watch her disintegrate.    
  
Right before he reached her, he was pulled back by what he quickly came to realize was Ladybug’s yo-yo. He slammed into the ground near her and rolled to reduce the impact. He immediately jumped up to question Ladybug on why he stopped her, but she beat him to it before he could get any words out.    
  
“Why would you even risk that? You could have killed that woman.” Ladybug said sternly, her face betraying her words as she winced in pain.    
  
“My lady, I-“ Chat began to reply before he was cut off.    
  
“You don’t even know if I would be able to fix that after I cured the akuma! If she would have died, how would you feel with her blood on your hands?” She said, her face deadpan as he stared at her, speechless.    
  
“Just- Just go home Chat. You said you were sick earlier and that’s obviously affecting you. I can take care of this.” Ladybug finished off. She walked past him and swung her yo-yo onto a nearby telephone pole and was off.    
  
Chat just stared blankly at her as she fought the woman, dipping and dodging her attacks while still in obvious pain.    
  
After staring for a while, he listened to her and headed home. She had never told him to leave before, and he was afraid that his quick and drug-addled actions would cause a rift in their partnership.    
  
Halfway home, he saw a flash of pink light and he was put a bit more at ease knowing she had defeated the akuma. The rest could be handled some other time.    
  
When he stopped in front of his house, he was happy to see that the lights were still out and his window was still open.  He quietly slid through his window and undid his transformation, chuckling to himself when he watched Plagg immediately go to his stash of cheese.    
  
Adrien sat down on his bed and looked at the clock on his wall, sighing when he saw it read 6:30 AM.  Once he slid under his covers, he fell right asleep.

 

* * *

 

  
  
Marinette sat in a booth in a small café downtown, checking her phone for the time. She and Alya were supposed to meet at 1:30, but Marinette seriously overslept because of the akuma. It was currently 1:38, and she was lucky Alya was always late to everything as well.    
  
She thought back to the fight last night, and how Chat was acting. Sure, she almost died, but Chat almost got himself killed. And he had been almost getting himself killed _a lot_ lately.    
  
Sure the extra energy that he came to fights with was good, but the past few months he’d been.. reckless.    
  
It was nothing though, Marinette thought. She’d talk to him later and get to the bottom of it. For now, the focus was Alya.    
  
As soon as the brown haired girl’s name went through her mind, the door of the café opened, Alya bouncing in. She walked right up to the table, not even bothering to order cause she knew Marinette would have already done it for her.    
  
She slid in the booth, her phone dropping out of her hand onto the table with a loud _plop_.    
  
“Girl, you are not gonna believe what happened last night!” Alya said, out of breath.    
  
“What happened?” Marinette replied raising her eyebrows, knowing exactly what happened. Alya had ran and maintained the LadyBlog through the beginning of college, getting funding from a minor tech startup to make it official and the support of millions of fans from Paris and across the world. Which meant that anytime Ladybug would breath, Alya and her camera crew were there to catch her exhale on video. Marinette just didn’t know how she hadn’t seen them there.   


“So last night there was an akuma, right? Well, Ladybug and Chat Noir showed up to fight, but halfway through the fight he and Ladybug got into an argument it seems, and she sent him home!” Alya said excitedly, waving her hands all about with enthusiasm.

Marinette raised her eyebrow, feigning surprise.

“Really? That never happened before. I don’t think so, at least.” She said, knowing that she had  _never_ had to ask Chat to leave the scene of a fight.

“Exactly my point! So that raises the question, what exactly made them split up?” Alya said, clasping her hands together and putting on her serious thinking face on.

“Here’s my theory,” She continued, pulling a pocket-sized notebook from her purse, “Chat Noir has been acting a little erratic lately, so maybe he’s sleep deprived, and Ladybug sent him home because she was worried for him? But that wouldn’t explain the argument they got in…” Alya said, trailing off to take a sip of her drink.

Both of them we startled by a loud beeping tone from Alya’s phone, and whatever it said made said girls eyebrows shoot up to her hairline.

“Mari, there's an akuma. I gotta go. Same time tomorrow?” Alya said, scrambling to grab her purse and drink and be out the doors. She didn’t even bother waiting for Marinette’s response, already knowing that she would be here, same time tomorrow.

Mari waited till Alya was out of sight of the cafe and got up to sneak out of the back, transforming quickly in an alley and heading to the location of the fight. She rung Chat 3 times on the way, with no answer.

In total, the fight took 15 minutes. Chat didn’t show up or call once.

Maybe it was for the best, Marinette thought.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> second chapter baybee!  
> sorry it took so long, I've been writing this since I put up the first chapter  
> anyway, thank you for reading!!  
> as always, kudos and comments are welcomed.

**Author's Note:**

> let me tell you... I was joking and thought of a miraculous au where one of them is a drug addict and logically adrien was my choice for France's Next Top Crackhead.... why did I write this? I don't know. will I keep writing it? probably.   
> kudos are appreciated.  
> comments are great, good or bad.  
> thank you!


End file.
